Drummer
by Vol lady
Summary: Jarrod successfully defends a young man on a murder charge, but then the man robs and murders an elderly couple in Stockton. As executor of their wills, Jarrod tries to take care of the dead couple's affairs, while dealing with his own guilt and a 21st century problem that turns up in the 19th century.
1. Chapter 1

Drummer

Chapter 1

"_Mr. Barkley, I can't thank you enough," young Michael Drummer said and shook his lawyer's hand, moments after the jury came back with a not guilty verdict and the judge set him free._

"_You're welcome, Michael," Jarrod said, shook his hand and went back to packing his paperwork up._

"_I'm sure I owe you a ton of money," Drummer said._

_Jarrod chuckled. "Not a ton, but I'll work up the bill for you and we'll figure out how you're gonna pay it. If I were you, I'd head out to the Wheeler place and see if you still have a job."_

"_Yeah, that's right," Drummer said, remembering he hadn't been there for a couple weeks now, being in jail for the murder of one of the hands at the Stevenson ranch. The murder had taken place late at night in an alley outside one of the local saloons. There were no witnesses and the only evidence against Drummer, or anybody else, was that they had argued over a card game. "I'll check it out and let you know where I am, Mr. Barkley. Thanks again."_

_Jarrod nodded as Drummer left the courthouse. Jarrod caught sight of a couple men from the Stevenson ranch, glaring at him as they slowly made their way out. Stevenson himself wasn't here, nor was Carl Wheeler, Drummer's boss. They weren't particularly concerned over the proceedings dealing with a card game death. Somebody would tell them how it came out, and they'd deal with whatever fell out of it when it was over._

_Jarrod knew that Drummer was probably out of a job at the Wheeler ranch. Carl Wheeler was a tough man and had little patience for his men getting into trouble with the law. But he was a fair man, usually, and Jarrod might be wrong about him canning Drummer. He hoped he was wrong. He wanted to see Drummer get on with his life, and he wanted to see his fee get paid._

Jarrod gave a lot of thought to all of that when Sheriff Madden came out to the house and told him what had happened, what he had found at the Heilman place, what the only witness said he saw. "Eben Chase is a fair-minded man. He doesn't have any grudge against anybody I know of, and his eyesight is better than mine. He saw Drummer outside the house carrying a small leather bag under his arm, and the Heilmans had a bag like that that's missing. So is Mrs. Heilman's jewelry, and the two of them were lying on their living room floor with their heads bashed in."

Jarrod closed his eyes against the onslaught of visions coming at him, especially the one where he got Drummer free only eight days earlier. What Sheriff Madden was telling him was that the man he'd won freedom for had just robbed and murdered two older Stockton citizens, in their home, in broad daylight. Jarrod's insides twisted into knots that the sheriff could see reflected on his face. "Is Drummer in custody?" Jarrod asked.

"No," Sheriff Madden said. "By the time Eben hustled over to my office, Drummer had ridden out of town. A couple people saw him heading south, so I had Danny round up a posse and go after him, but they don't know exactly where he might be going. I was hoping you'd know something."

Jarrod turned away, rubbing his forehead, thinking. That was when he noticed his mother on the stair, stopped halfway down, watching, listening. From the look on her face, she'd heard what the sheriff had to say.

Sheriff Madden noticed her at the same time and took his hat off. "Victoria. I didn't realize you were there."

Victoria came all the way down, saying, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I just - stopped cold when you said – the Heilmans are dead? Today?"

The sheriff nodded as Jarrod wandered off toward the living room, still thinking. And more. The news that Michael Drummer was probably the killer had practically knocked him down. Jarrod was feeling nearly overwhelmed with guilt. Drummer was out running free because he had gotten him off of one murder charge, and now he had committed two more murders. Jarrod's thinking wouldn't come together. He had even forgotten what it was the sheriff had asked him.

"Jarrod, do you have any idea where Drummer might have gone?" the sheriff asked again.

"I'm sorry," Jarrod said, turning back toward the sheriff and his mother. "I – no, I don't know offhand. He had some family – I wired them when he was on trial, but they didn't respond. I'd have to check my files to be sure where they are."

"I'd appreciate it if you came into town and looked right away," the sheriff said.

Jarrod looked at the clock in the foyer. It was only a bit past one in the afternoon. "Of course," Jarrod said. "Let me get myself together."

Jarrod headed into the hall for his gunbelt and hat. As he did, Victoria exchanged a worried look with Sheriff Madden. The sheriff knew exactly what she was worried about. Jarrod was a man who had little patience with himself when it came to mistakes he made about his clients, or about men he had prosecuted in his days with the District Attorney's Office. But this was the first time they could remember that a client he had successfully defended against a murder charge had gone out and murdered someone else, and an innocent elderly couple to boot.

Jarrod didn't even look up at them as he came back with his gun and hat. "Mother, I don't know when I'll be back. Don't hold dinner for me," he said and headed straight for the door.

"Jarrod – " Victoria said.

Jarrod stopped and looked her way.

"Don't – " She didn't get any farther. She realized she didn't know how to say it without sounding trite, without belittling how she knew he felt.

Jarrod took her by the hand and kissed her cheek. "I'll be back when I'm back, Mother. If I can help the posse, I will. Try not to worry."

Victoria nearly told him that was going to be impossible to do, but he didn't need to hear that. She just nodded and watched him leave with the sheriff.

Audra came down from upstairs then. "Mother?" she said.

Victoria closed the door, turned and came back to meet her at the bottom of the stairs.

"Was that the sheriff?" Audra asked.

Victoria nodded, and made a decision. "There's a problem in town. The Heilmans have been robbed and murdered."

Audra gasped. She knew the old couple from church. "Murdered?"

"And there is a posse after Michael Drummer," Victoria said. "Audra, please, I want you to go out to the north pasture and tell Nick and Heath what's happened. Jarrod's gone into town to his office to try to get some information for the sheriff, but he's not going to leave it at that. He'll go after Drummer himself. I know he will. Ask Nick and Heath to go after him, please."

"Of course," Audra said, and kissed her mother quickly before grabbing her gloves from the table in the foyer and hurrying out the door.

And then Victoria was left with herself and all the dreadful thoughts going through her mind. The Heilmans had been friends for years, supporters of the church. John Heilman had been an importer of tea and rice from China for a long time. And now they were dead – at the hands of a man Jarrod had represented and gotten acquitted only eight days earlier.

She knew her oldest. He'd be devastated by this, by even the idea that he'd set a murderer free to kill two innocent people. This had to be a defense attorney's worst nightmare, and Jarrod had gone off to deal with it alone.

XXXXXXXX

Heath saw Audra riding slowly toward him through the herd of cattle and was surprised. Usually, if she were visiting, she'd stay off to the side. He went toward her. "Something up?" he asked her.

Audra nodded. "That man Jarrod defended last week, Michael Drummer. He's been accused of killing the Heilmans and he's run off. Mother's afraid Jarrod's going to go after him. She wants you and Nick to go to town and take care of Jarrod."

"The Heilmans?" Heath asked.

"A robbery," Audra said.

Heath looked around, scanning for Nick. Luckily, Nick had seen Audra arrive and was coming toward them. "What's going on?" Nick asked.

"Trouble," Heath said. "Michael Drummer. Looks like he's robbed and killed the Heilmans and Jarrod's gone after him."

Nick heaved an unhappy sigh. "Let me tell McColl. Audra, tell Mother we might be a few days if Jarrod's of a mind to take off and we have to go after him."

Audra nodded. "I think she knows that, Nick. Be careful."

"We will," Heath said as Nick rode off to find McCall.

As Audra turned and rode off, Heath stayed where he was, and he wondered what he would feel like if someone he had just gotten off a murder charge had killed someone else. A lot of things had happened to him in life, but since he wasn't a lawyer this wasn't one of them, and as far as he knew it had never happened to Jarrod before, either. But he knew if it was happening to Jarrod, Jarrod would take off after Drummer. Jarrod was always one to try to right a wrong when he saw it, and if he was responsible for the wrong – Heath hoped he and Nick could get to him before he was out of reach.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Nick and Heath rode to town in silence, in too big a hurry to talk much. When they got there, they intended to head straight for the sheriff's office, but they spotted Jarrod in his office near that big window he had. They went there instead, and found the sheriff there with their older brother, both of them looking at papers.

Jarrod looked up. "What are you doing here?" he said, and then realized, "That was a foolish question, wasn't it? Mother sent you."

"Audra came after us," Nick said. "She told us what happened."

"Have you got a posse out, Sheriff?" Heath asked.

"Yeah," Sheriff Madden said. "They're tracking Drummer, but I wanted to find out if there was somewhere specific he might be going."

"There's a town east of Merced – Planada," Jarrod said. "Drummer told me he had kin there. Maybe they're still there, maybe they're not. I want to go check it out."

"We'll go with you," Nick said.

Jarrod looked exasperated. "Nick, I don't need a nursemaid."

"I wasn't thinking that, Jarrod," Nick said.

Jarrod eyed him hard. Nick could see a whole bundle of bothers in his brother's eyes, and not just the pain he was feeling because his client had killed the Heilmans.

Nick said, "I'm not worried about another Rimfire, Jarrod. I'm worried about another Jeff Bowden."

Jarrod's eyes changed.

Heath said, "We're not worried about you killing Drummer – we're worried about him killing you."

"They have a point, Jarrod," Sheriff Madden said, "and I can't go with you. I need to be here in case the posse catches up to him and brings him in. You three come over to the office before you leave town. I'll deputize you."

Jarrod nodded. "All right. It's getting late. We need to get started. It'll be three more days at the earliest before we can make Planada on horseback, if we don't catch up to Drummer somewhere before that. We'll need to get some provisions at the general store, too."

"Let's do it," Heath said and he and Nick were out the door.

Jarrod jotted down a note for his secretary, saying he would be out of the office for a few days. "Fred," he said as he did, "would you send a runner out to the house and tell Mother what we're up to?"

"Sure," Sheriff Madden said, and then he grew more serious. "Jarrod – you have to know none of this is your fault."

"Isn't it?" Jarrod said quietly. "He was free because I got him off."

"He was free because a jury said he was not guilty of killing that cowhand," the sheriff said.

"And who convinced the jury of that?" Jarrod said.

"Maybe because he _didn't_ kill that cowhand," the sheriff said. "Just because he was seen leaving the Heilman place and just because it looks like he did kill them, it doesn't mean he killed that cowhand. You didn't do anything wrong in this, Jarrod."

"Maybe not," Jarrod said, "but it sure feels like I did. He was free to kill the Heilmans because of me. There's no other way to look at it, Fred."

With that, Jarrod put Drummer's file away. The sheriff stood waiting for him, reluctant to leave everything that way, but Jarrod wasn't willing to talk about it anymore. He ushered the sheriff out ahead of him, left the note for his secretary, and then locked the door behind them. He and the sheriff were out in the street together before the sheriff said to him, "If you find Drummer, you wire me."

Jarrod nodded as he mounted up. "If the posse finds him, wire me in Planada," he said, and he rode over to join his brothers at the general store.

That was when he heard a group of horses riding into town, and he looked – and he saw. The posse was back, and they had a man draped over and tied to one of the horses. They pulled up in front of the sheriff's office. Jarrod hurried over there, afraid of what he was going to find.

And he found it. The dead man draped over the horse was Michael Drummer.

Jarrod sagged, just about ready to cave in. "Damn," he breathed.

XXXXXX

Nick poured some scotch Jarrod kept in his office and took him the glass. Sitting behind his desk, Jarrod took it with a quiet, "Thanks,"' and downed it in one gulp.

Nick went to fetch more, while Heath sat patiently in the chair in front of Jarrod's desk, waiting to see what he was needed for. Nick delivered another glass of scotch – Jarrod took hold of this one but did not drink it right away. Nick moved behind him, looking out the window. They were all wondering – what now?

Nick said, "I guess you'll want to go over to the undertaker's."

"Fred is wiring Drummer's family in Planada, to see if they want to come claim the body," Jarrod said. "If they don't, I'll see to the burial."

"You don't have to do that, Jarrod," Heath said. "The county will bury him."

Jarrod pinched his nose between his aching eyes, to make the pain stop. It wouldn't stop. "I'll need to see to the Heilmans, too. I'm the executor of their will."

"Did they leave any family?" Nick asked.

Jarrod shook his head. "They left everything they owned to the church and the orphanage. They weren't rich, but they weren't poor, either." He shook his head even more. "I just don't believe this. None of it makes any sense. Drummer was free and clear and he goes and commits robbery and double murder."

Heath sighed. "I don't like putting it this way, but maybe he got brave after he got acquitted last week. Maybe he started thinking he could get away with it again."

Jarrod looked up at his youngest brother. "I wish you weren't, but you might be right."

Jarrod knocked his second glass of scotch back. Nick wasn't really inclined to give him another one. "Maybe it's best we go on home," Nick said instead. "It's getting late. Nothing else is gonna happen around here today."

Jarrod got up slowly, and Heath stood up as well. He and Nick stayed close, ready to help their older brother if he needed a hand, because of the scotch or for whatever other reason. But Jarrod was sure on his feet. He reached for his hat on the hat tree behind his desk and put it on. Nick and Heath picked their hats up off his desk and donned them as well.

Jarrod looked at them, his eyes uncertain but not because of the scotch. Because he didn't know what to say. Nick threw an arm around his shoulders, and no one said anything. They just left and rode home.

XXXXXXXX

Victoria and Audra were astonished to see them when they came in the door. The women had settled in with sherry before dinner. They hadn't even had Silas cook enough food for the men. Both Victoria and Audra jumped up and came to the foyer as the men shed their hats and gunbelts.

"What happened?" Victoria asked. "We thought you'd go after Drummer."

"The posse found him first," Jarrod said. "The boy's dead."

"Oh," Victoria breathed.

"Jarrod, I'm so sorry," Audra said.

Jarrod ran a hand through his hair, mostly to try to rid himself of the headache, but it wasn't leaving. "Please excuse me," he said. "I could stand to clean up a bit."

He trudged wearily upstairs alone, but four sets of eyes followed him until he was out of sight. At that point, Victoria asked, "What happened?"

"The posse caught up with Drummer before we left Stockton," Nick said. "They said Drummer tried to shoot his way out of it, and they killed him."

"So, that's the end of it?" Audra asked.

"Oh, I don't think so," Nick said.

"Jarrod's been feeling pretty low about the whole thing," Heath said, "and he's the executor for the Heilmans, so it's not like he can just let it go."

"Did Drummer have any family?" Victoria asked.

"Some in Planada, maybe," Nick said. "Jarrod tried wiring them when the trial came up, but nobody answered him, so there's no telling if they're still there. Fred's wiring them again. We'll see what happens."

"It'll take Jarrod a while to sort this out," Victoria said. "He takes his work very seriously, and when it goes wrong, he suffers for it."

"We know," Nick said.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Audra asked.

"Not a thing," Heath said. "He'll just have to work it out himself."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next morning, Jarrod put the paperwork together so that he could get the proper authorization from the court to take care of the Heilmans' affairs. It was always a sad duty to do that for a client who died, but this was almost unbearable. Even though he tried to talk himself out of believing it was his fault they were dead, the guilt would not leave him. The best he could do was to remember he had to keep on doing his duty to them, and right now his duty was to carry out their wishes in accordance with their wills.

As he was leaving the courthouse with the letters of administration and headed for the church, he ran into Sheriff Madden, who called to him in the street. Jarrod waited for the sheriff to catch up with him. "Good morning, Fred," Jarrod said.

"Morning, Jarrod," Sheriff Madden said. "I thought I'd let you know, I never did get a reply to my telegram to Drummer's brother in Planada."

"Not even that there's no such person there?"

"No. Nothing."

Jarrod started thinking. There was so much he had to do for the Heilmans, but at the same time he hated the thought of Michael Drummer's body still in limbo. But he could hardly take care of it all at once. Jarrod considered that maybe it would be better for everyone if they just buried Drummer here in the town cemetery. It wouldn't cost much. There would be nothing fancy or honorable about the grave of a double – maybe triple – murderer.

Sheriff Madden saw the wheels turning. "You're executor for the Heilmans, aren't you?" he asked.

Jarrod nodded. "And my first duty is to them. All right, Fred. I'll see if I can get letters of administration for Drummer and we'll find a place for him in the back of the town cemetery. We'll get the burial done today if possible. I'll take care of the cost."

"The sooner, the better," the sheriff said.

"Yeah," Jarrod said, mostly to himself as the sheriff turned and walked away.

Jarrod continued on to the church to talk to the minister about a funeral for the Heilmans, but as he came closer to the front door, he hesitated. This was the church, the one the Heilmans belonged to, the one his own family belonged to. Suddenly he stopped, staring up at the cross. He couldn't get his feet to move. He was overwhelmed with the feeling that he didn't belong here. Try as he might – and he had tried over and over again in the past 24 hours – he could not shake the feeling that the Heilmans were dead because of him.

"_You gotta cut this out, Jarrod," Nick had said to him that morning. "Self-pity doesn't look good on you."_

"_It's not self-pity, Nick," Jarrod replied to him as they both finished saddling their horses in the stable yard._

"_Then what do you call it?"_

"_Responsibility," Jarrod said quietly._

"_Did you shoot them?"_

"_I may as well have."_

"_That's not responsibility, Jarrod. That's self-pity."_

_Jarrod mounted up and looked down at his younger brother, still standing on the ground. "Do you remember how you felt when Jack Follet died after you fought with him?"_

_Nick remembered. They never did find a reason for Follet's death, and even if the coroner's jury found it was caused by "person or persons unknown," it never did sit well with Nick. He had been in a fight with Follet minutes before he died. It might have been his fault, but he'd never really know for sure._

_Jarrod saw the memory in his brother's face. "Go ahead, Nick. Go ahead. Tell me again how I'm not responsible."_

Jarrod knew it had been a low blow to pull that memory out and shove it in Nick's face, but at the time he was angry that Nick called his feelings about the Heilmans self-pity. How could Nick understand that as a lawyer, Jarrod carried responsibility for every person he represented? And if he made a mistake that led to someone being injured, he carried the responsibility for that, too. And now he stood in front of the church, bearing responsibility for the deaths of two members whose affairs he was charged with seeing to. Maybe he should have expected something like this to happen before now, but he had never given it a thought. He was completely unprepared for what had happened.

The door opened. Reverend Johnson was a young man, still relatively new here, having arrived in Stockton to take over this congregation only a few years earlier. Jarrod didn't know him well, but he was a man who usually wore a smile and he had one now. "I saw you walking up this way and wondered where you'd gotten to, Jarrod," he said. "Come on in, if you'd like."

Jarrod still hesitated, but then he knew he had to go in whether he wanted to or not. "I have a couple of matters I need to discuss with you, Reverend."

The minister opened the door wide. "Come on in."

Jarrod took his hat off and entered. He paused by the door as the reverend closed it. Suddenly an old memory flashed into Jarrod's mind – from a time he entered a church when he was also looking for himself, in a different way. He had been injured and had no memory of who he was, and he felt very uncomfortable in a church and talking to a priest who did not know him. _Maybe I belong here, and maybe I belong in jail_, Jarrod remembered saying at the time. He didn't think he belonged in jail this time, but he didn't think he belonged here, either.

Reverend Johnson could see the dispute going on behind Jarrod's eyes very easily. He didn't know Jarrod very well, but he knew that unless Jarrod had some reason to hide his feelings, they were right there in his eyes. "I suppose you're here about the Heilmans," Reverend Johnson said.

Jarrod nodded. "I'm executor of their estates, and I need to arrange for funeral services for them."

Reverend Johnson nodded and said, "Let's go back to the office."

There was a small church office back off the nave. Reverend Johnson led Jarrod there, but he noticed Jarrod was still moving hesitantly, and he was reluctant to sit down in front of the desk.

"When did you want to have the services?" the reverend asked, motioning for Jarrod to sit as he took his own place behind the desk.

Jarrod sat. "Tomorrow morning, if possible."

Reverend Johnson nodded. "They actually had places reserved here in the churchyard. The graves will be excavated this afternoon. How does ten o'clock tomorrow morning sound?"

"It sounds fine," Jarrod said. He took one of the letters of administration out of his pocket and gave it to Reverend Johnson. "Here you are, for your records."

The reverend took the letter, and then decided to broach the subject he thought might be bothering Jarrod as well. "As for the young man who is accused of killing them – have plans been made?"

Jarrod nodded. "He'll be buried in the town cemetery. I was hoping to arrange it with the undertaker for this afternoon."

"I doubt that he'd repented for his sins before he died."

"Not that I'm aware of, so it's not really appropriate to have him buried in the church yard."

The reverend nodded. "Nevertheless, would you like me to say a few words at the grave?"

Jarrod shook his head. "I'll leave that up to you. Maybe it would be more helpful if you said a few prayers for him here instead."

Reverend Johnson decided to say what he'd been holding back since Jarrod came into the church. "And a few for you, too?"

Jarrod smiled, a little embarrassed. "It shows, does it?"

"I know how hard you worked to get that young man acquitted of the murder charge against him last week," Reverend Johnson said. "To have him commit two murders afterward has got to be grating on your conscience."

"That's putting it mildly, Reverend," Jarrod admitted. "I've never had anything like this happen before, and I've been practicing law for quite a few years now. I suppose I should have been ready for anything by now, but this – this is really getting to me."

"I can understand that," Reverend Johnson said. "I know we haven't known each other for long, but the fact that you are a man of conscience has been obvious since before I even met you. Your reputation extends far beyond Stockton."

"I'm not a saint, Reverend," Jarrod said. "I suppose that reputation glosses over my sins a bit."

"You're a good man, Jarrod. Not perfect, but no one is. The sins that follow you around haven't dragged you down before, and I'm aware that one or two of them have been grievous sins. You've repented. You've done your penance. That's what you need to do now."

"I'm not sure what penance is in this case, Reverend. Taking care of the Heilmans' affairs, of course, but that's a duty I contracted for with them a long time ago. That's not penance."

"I'm not sure I have an answer for you, Jarrod. But it will come to you. You will figure out what you need to do now. It's just a matter of time, and perhaps of seeing both the Heilmans and the young Drummer fellow laid to rest. The only advice I'd give you is not to rush it, but not to give up, either. What you need to do to soothe your soul will come to you. Just believe that you deserve to soothe your soul, because you do. While what's happened may have been a terrible outcome, it's not a sin on your part. Perhaps a mistake, but maybe not even that. You'll figure out the truth. I have faith."

The reverend's words and his smile put Jarrod more at ease. He smiled, stood up, and offered his hand. "Thank you, Reverend. I can find a little comfort in those words."

Reverend Johnson stood up and shook Jarrod's hand. "Good. Is there anything you want especially for the service?"

Jarrod thought about the Heilmans. "Just that they were good, honest people who did Stockton proud, and that we'll all miss them very much."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Reverend Johnson came to Michael Drummer's gravesite as he was being buried that afternoon and said some appropriate words, but only the grave diggers and Jarrod were there to hear them. When he was finished, the reverend put a hand on Jarrod's shoulder and then went on his way. Jarrod stood staring at the coffin, staring so hard that at first the gravediggers were reluctant to begin filling the grave. The two men looked at each other, and then backed off just a bit when they saw someone else coming.

Jarrod felt that someone step up beside him, and he was startled. "Nick! What are you doing here?"

"I came looking for you," Nick said. "I got to thinking about what we said to each other this morning."

"I'm sorry about that, Nick," Jarrod said. "I was out of line when I brought up Jack Follet."

"No, you weren't," Nick said. "I was the one out of line. I was trying to knock you out of your doldrums and I picked the wrong way to do it. Instead of calling you self-pitying, I should have asked you what I could do to help you. I'm sorry, Big Brother."

"Forget it," Jarrod said. "You weren't far wrong."

"What can I do to help you, Jarrod?"

"You've done part of it. You're here."

Nick looked down at the grave. "Do you still think he was innocent of killing that cowhand?"

"I don't know," Jarrod said. "I was sure he was, but now, I don't know."

"You looked for the truth before the trial."

"There just wasn't much to find," Jarrod said.

"And under the law, that meant Drummer had to go free," Nick said.

"What if he did kill that cowhand, Nick, and I just didn't find the right witness?"

"I don't think that happened, but if you think it might have – go look again. Talk to people again. I don't think there's much else you can do."

The grave diggers were shoveling dirt onto Michael Drummer's coffin now. Bit by bit, it was being covered.

Nick put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "What can I do to help you?"

Jarrod sighed, thinking. "Go have a beer."

"What?" Nick laughed.

"Go over to Harry's and have a beer, and while you're at it, ask Harry if anybody has been saying anything about Drummer and the cowhand since the trial ended, especially since this all cropped up yesterday."

Nick shrugged. "Sure, but it wouldn't be too smart for somebody who knew something to go talking about it now."

Jarrod looked seriously at his brother. "Men aren't always very smart, Nick. In fact, get some liquor into them and they can be downright stupid."

Nick had to nod. "You have a point. You going back to your office?"

"I want to go talk to Fred first, but I'll head back there sooner or later. I'll be one place or the other."

"All right," Nick said, gave Jarrod a pat on the back, and then walked away, saying, "I'll go have a beer."

Jarrod watched him go, knowing this idea wasn't much. Nick was right that not too many men would be stupid enough to talk about what they knew when the trial was over, but Jarrod was fixated now on stones he might have left unturned. He looked back at Drummer's grave, the coffin now covered as the men had started to shovel dirt in. _All right,_ he told himself. _Let's see what's really happening here._

XXXXXX

Jarrod went to the sheriff's office and found Sheriff Madden there, fretting over paperwork. Jarrod had to smile a little. Sheriff Madden hated paperwork even more than Nick did. When Jarrod came in, the sheriff gave a big sigh and sat back in his chair. "Thanks for the rescue," he said.

Jarrod said, "It's not a rescue. I have questions, Fred, about the posse bringing Drummer in."

"All right," Sheriff Madden said.

"I'm executor of the Heilmans' estates," Jarrod said. "As executor, I need to know what happened to that leather bag and Mrs. Heilman's jewelry. Do you have it?"

The sheriff sighed. "I wish I did. Drummer didn't have it on him when the posse got to him. They said they looked around, but it wasn't anywhere near him. I figure he stashed it somewhere along the way, thinking he'd come back later for it."

"Do you have anyone looking for it?"

"It's not high on my list of priorities, Jarrod. If you want to have somebody look, I'll deputize them, but it could be anywhere between here and where they took Drummer."

"Where was that?" Jarrod asked.

"About six miles south of town," the sheriff said. "Chances are, somebody who isn't looking for it will find it, and we might never see the bag or the jewelry again."

Jarrod figured it was going to be something like this. But he said, "Eben Chase is absolutely sure he saw Drummer with the bag?"

"Absolutely, and the bag and the jewelry are definitely gone from the house," the sheriff said. "Are you trying to argue Drummer didn't take the bag and the jewelry?"

Jarrod shook his head. "Not yet. Right now I just want to find the items for the estate."

"But you might want to argue later that he didn't take them," the sheriff said. "Jarrod, if it was anybody but Eben Chase who saw Drummer leaving the scene, I'd be on the doubtful side myself, but Eben is as honest a man as I know."

"I know, Fred, I agree with you, and I know you don't think he's likely to have been mistaken either," Jarrod said, frowning at the empty air in front of him. "I'm not saying he was mistaken. I'm just trying to do my job as executor and figure this out."

"And to ease your mind about Drummer."

Jarrod looked at the sheriff, and then he nodded. "That's part of it, too."

The sheriff opened his desk drawer and pulled a deputy's badge out. "Do you want to go looking yourself?"

"Over six miles? I don't think I'd find anything – I don't think anybody would," Jarrod said, holding his hand up to decline the badge. "Are you sure those items are not still in the house?"

"They weren't in there when we looked, but you'll be doing a more thorough job once you start inventorying the place. If they're there, you'll find them before anybody else will."

Jarrod knew that was true, but he also knew it was going to take time to go through the Heilmans' belongings for the estate inventory. He was planning to hire help for that rather than do it alone, but now he was rethinking that. The question was how would he find the time?

The sheriff saw the way his mind was working. "Look, Jarrod, I know you feel awful about this, but there's no need. You've done everything by the book – the investigation, the trial, everything. And like I said to you before, it's possible Drummer did not kill that cowhand but he did kill the Heilmans. If I were a betting man, I'd bet you did everything right and that's what the truth is. Drummer did not kill that cowhand, but he did kill the Heilmans."

"Why?" Jarrod asked.

"Why would I bet that?"

"No. Why did Drummer kill the Heilmans?"

"Because he was robbing them and they caught him at it!"

"Why was he robbing them?"

"Because he lost his job and he was broke!"

"But why here? He'd just been found innocent of a murder here. Why commit two murders in the same town where he'd just been tried for one?"

The sheriff was getting exasperated. "I don't know! Because he was foolish! Because he was feeling he could get away with it since he – "

The sheriff stopped. Jarrod completed the sentence. "Since he'd already gotten away with it once."

"That wasn't what I wanted to say," the sheriff said.

"But it's what you're thinking, Fred," Jarrod said. "And so am I."

"Then you better look at the closed case again, if it's haunting you that much," the sheriff said.

"I already am," Jarrod said. "I have Nick helping me out on that. Just one more thing – are you sure nobody on that posse might have found that bag and the jewelry and just kept it?"

"Hell, no, of course I can't swear nobody did that, but Danny would have stopped it if he saw it happening, and he didn't say anything to me about it."

Jarrod nodded and headed for the door. "I'd appreciate it if you'd at least ask Danny and the members of the posse about it. I'll talk to Eben and I'll look into the cowhand's killing, too. I suppose the first thing I ought to do is get reacquainted with his name."

"John March," the sheriff said.

"Thanks, Fred," Jarrod said as he went out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Eben Chase was an older man. Once he'd owned and run a pretty nice farm, but age and the deaths of his wife and two sons in an epidemic had done him in. He sold out and moved into town, into a house right around the bend from the Heilmans, and now he was just biding his time, waiting for the Good Lord to let him be with his family again. Jarrod felt for the man and he really didn't want to talk to him as if he were questioning his veracity, but he had to have some answers. He had to be sure that Chase was sure about what he'd seen.

When Jarrod knocked on the door of the small house that had once belonged to Jeff Bowden and his wife, he had a hard time getting rid of the memories. He had been wrong about Jeff Bowden. The jury had gotten it right. Jeff really had murdered the priest – something Jarrod never told anyone, a confession by Jeff's wife that was just between him and her. The last time Jarrod had been in this house was when he had to tell Jeff's wife he was dead, and when she told him the truth about Jeff. She had just given birth to their son when Nick had to kill Jeff in the street. This house held memories that echoed eerily with what was happening with Michael Drummer. Jarrod hated that, but he had to talk to Eben Chase.

Chase opened the door, and he did not look particularly happy to see Jarrod, but he did look resigned. "Oh, hello, Jarrod. Come on in."

Jarrod took his hat off and stepped inside. "Thanks, Eben. How have you been?"

"You really don't need to ask, do you?" Chase said and motioned for Jarrod to sit down on the couch.

Jarrod sat. "No. I expect you and I are the most unhappy men in town right now."

Chase sat down in his rocking chair. "I suppose you want to hear from me what I saw."

"I know you saw Michael Drummer riding away from the Heilmans' place, and I don't doubt that you did. But I'm the executor for the Heilmans' estates, and I'm trying to find out about that leather bag you saw him carrying."

Chase nodded. "Dark brown leather. He was shoving it into his saddlebag as he was taking off. It barely fit."

"Mrs. Heilman's jewelry is missing, too. I don't suppose you could see if it might have been in that bag."

"No, I'm sorry. All I could see was the bag."

"You're sure it was leather?"

"It looked the same as his saddlebags. What happened? Didn't he have it on him when they caught up to him?"

"No," Jarrod said, shaking his head. "We figure he stashed it somewhere, planning to come back for it, but he was killed shooting it out with the posse."

"I hear was near six miles out of town when they caught up to him," Chase said. "I don't reckon you're too keen on looking close at all six of those miles to see where he might have put it."

"No, I'm not," Jarrod said. "Eben, did Drummer see you before he rode off?"

Chase shook his head. "He didn't seem to."

"Was anyone else around there at the time? Did anybody else see him take off?"

"No, just me. I knew something was up by the way he high-tailed it out of there."

"Did you go for the sheriff?"

"After I looked in at the Heilman place. Drummer left the door open when he ran. I looked in. I saw the Heilmans on the floor and I saw the blood – "

Chase was beginning to be upset. Jarrod said, "I know it had to be terrible for you, Eben."

"They were good people. They didn't deserve what happened to them."

"Did you happen to see Drummer go into their house?"

"No, I didn't. I was in here, then I went outside and out back to fetch some firewood. That's when I saw him."

Jarrod stood up. "Would you take me outside and show me where you were when you saw him ride off?"

"Sure," Chase said.

Chase led Jarrod out the front door and around the house to the back. They stopped right near Chase's woodpile, and Chase pointed to the front of the Heilman's house, not 30 feet away.

"I was right here," Chase said. "That Drummer boy was getting on his horse, right in front of the Heilman house, shoving that leather bag into his saddlebag as he did. He took off like a bat out of hell and that's when I saw the front door was open. So I went up and looked in and then I ran off to the sheriff's office."

"Did you actually see Drummer come out of the house?"

"No, he was already out here when I saw him."

Jarrod took a deep breath, looking at that door now closed and locked, his insides twisting at the thought of the Heilmans being clubbed to death just on the other side of that door. But there was one more question he had to ask, even though he didn't want to ask it and knew what the answer was going to be. "Eben, I don't want you to think I doubt you, but I have to be absolutely sure, and I need to know you're absolutely sure it was Michael Drummer you saw in front of the Heilman's house?"

"I'm sorry, Jarrod," Chase said. "I'm absolutely sure it was him."

Jarrod nodded, resigned. "Is there anything else I should know, Eben?" Jarrod asked, still staring at the door.

"No," Chase said. "Just that I'm sorry this all had to happen. Sorry for you, too."

"Me?" Jarrod asked.

"You got that boy off that murder charge last week, and now he goes and does this. You gotta hurt like the devil, Jarrod, and I'm just sorry."

Jarrod had to smile a little, appreciating the sympathy. "Thank you, Eben. It does hurt, but the more I can do right by the Heilmans now, the more it will help."

"Do you have the services lined up for the Heilmans yet?" Chase asked.

"Yes, ten o'clock tomorrow morning," Jarrod said.

Chase nodded. "I'll be there."

When Jarrod left Chase's house, he decided Nick might probably still be at Harry's, so he went over there. Sure enough, Nick had found himself a poker game and was staring hard at his cards. Jarrod wandered over behind him and looked at his brother's hand. It wasn't bad.

"Keep what you see to yourself, Jarrod," Nick said without looking up.

Jarrod had to chuckle. He didn't realize Nick even knew he was there. Jarrod watched Nick play the hand out but lose to the better hand a stranger across the table had. "Sorry about that, Nick," he said.

Nick got up from the table. "My big brother calls, gents," he said to the other players. "And my money's pretty much gone too, so I will see you all later."

"See ya, Nick," a couple of the other players said.

Jarrod led Nick over to the bar as he pocketed his remaining money. "How much did you lose?"

"Only five dollars or so," Nick said. "Found out something, though."

Jarrod perked up before they even got to the bar. "What?"

Harry was waiting for them at the bar, and Nick nodded over that way. He and Jarrod walked over to Harry, and Nick said quietly, "Tell Jarrod what you told me."

"Some of Wheeler's hands were in here last night," Harry said very quietly. "After they got a few drinks in them, I overheard one of them say that he wasn't surprised Drummer got off because nobody was gonna say he killed March, even though this guy thought he did."

Jarrod straightened like he'd touched a live wire. "Did he say why he thought Drummer did the killing?"

"Said he heard Drummer say after the fight with March that he was gonna find him and kill him," Harry said.

Jarrod wilted. No one had come forward to say that during the investigation. No one.

"Drummer could be a dangerous kid, Jarrod," Harry said. "I came close to banning him from the bar after that fight with March, but I never got the chance. I think you never heard anybody say Drummer had threatened March because the men he worked with were just afraid of him."

Nick eyed his brother, concerned now. He could see Jarrod was kicked in the head by this, and also that he was getting mad. "Who was it said that Drummer threatened March?" Jarrod asked.

"Another kid, I don't know his name," Harry said. "Comes in here with the bunch every week or so."

"What's he look like?"

"Like every cowhand you ever saw. I'd have a hard time picking him out of the bunch."

"Does it matter much now anyway, Jarrod?" Nick asked.

"I could have him arrested for obstructing justice," Jarrod said, "but that wouldn't get him anything but a slap on the wrist. No, it doesn't matter. Only to me."

"I'm sorry, Jarrod," Harry said.

"Have you heard anything from anyone else?" Jarrod asked.

"No, but I'll keep my ears open and let you know if I do," Harry said.

Jarrod nodded and walked out the door. Nick exchanged looks with Harry, thanking him for his help, and he followed Jarrod out to the street. His older brother had stopped by the front door, staring into the air with a great frown. Nick stood beside him, not really knowing what to say.

"Maybe we ought to head home for the day," Nick said.

Jarrod glanced at the town clock near his office. It was going on three o'clock. He sighed. "Maybe so. I've got a lot of thinking to do. A whole lot."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

No one was surprised that Jarrod was quiet during their before dinner visit and during dinner as well. Nick had told them, after Jarrod had gone up to change clothes, what Harry had said. Everyone slumped at once, the same way Jarrod had.

"Jarrod's going to feel like not finding this witness before the trial is his fault," Audra said.

"He does," Nick said. "He didn't say a word on the way home."

And he barely said a word the rest of the evening. Concerned, Victoria came down after everyone else had gone to bed and sure enough, Jarrod was there by the fireplace, drink in hand, leaning against the mantle and staring at the dying fire. She came over to him. If he heard her, he didn't show it.

"What can I do to help you?" Victoria asked.

Jarrod glanced over his shoulder at her, but went right back to looking at the dying fire. "Nothing, really. I have to work this out myself."

"So, if I tell you that the Heilmans' deaths were not your fault, the words will be empty," Victoria said.

Jarrod nodded. "I did talk to Reverend Johnson today. He gave me some good advice – advice I should have known myself."

"What did he say?"

"That I'm a good man and I deserve to soothe my soul, and I will. What to do will come to me."

"Those are very wise words. Why aren't you taking them to heart?"

"I am taking them to heart, Mother," Jarrod said. "It's just that what to do – well, what's coming to me isn't helping. All I've managed to find out was that Michael Drummer was probably guilty of the charge I got him acquitted on. I got him free, and he went out and killed the Heilmans. Now he's dead too. That's a lot of death, Mother. Three deaths I could have prevented if I had done my job better."

Victoria came closer to him and rubbed his back. "Nick told us what Harry said. How can you expect yourself to know that there was someone who wasn't coming forward with the truth?"

"It's my job to find people like that and make them come forward."

"You can't force people to be honest. Certainly you know that after all these years practicing law."

Jarrod heaved a sigh. "My head knows it. My heart is still upset with me."

"So, what are you going to do now? How will you soothe your soul?"

"That, I don't know," Jarrod said. "For now, I have to concentrate on the Heilmans and their estates. That's my duty to them right now. Perhaps I'll find some solace there, I don't know. But right now, right this minute, I have to keep feeling rotten. Maybe I just need to wring it all out of me like a wet shirt."

Victoria chuckled a little at his analogy. "I do think Reverend Johnson was right. It will come to you, perhaps when you're not even thinking about it."

Jarrod nodded, turned and kissed her. "We'll hope so. He also said not to rush it."

"He's a pretty smart man. I'd definitely take his advice."

"I am, Mother," Jarrod said. "You go on to bed. I'll be up in a while."

"You'll be going in to the office in the morning, before the funeral?"

Jarrod nodded. "I have a couple things to attend to early. I'll see you at the church."

She bid him good night and went back upstairs. Jarrod stayed where he was, still staring at the fire, but not really thinking. His mother was right when she said his answers might come to him when he wasn't thinking. For tonight, he let the fire dance in his sight, remembering that sometimes just watching the fire helped his soul. Helped him focus. Maybe what he was looking for wouldn't come to him tonight, but he was willing to take Reverend Johnson's advice, and his mother's. He'd bide his time and let the answers come when they would.

XXXXXXX

It seemed like almost everyone in town came to the funeral for the Heilmans. It was difficult for everyone to see those two coffins, side by side, but Reverend Johnson's eulogy helped people deal with their shock and their grief. He was eloquent, he was full of love and full of belief in the life hereafter that the Heilmans were going to. It helped everyone cope.

Except Jarrod. He scarcely heard a thing. He almost thought he saw the Heilmans each sitting up in their caskets and staring at him accusingly. He almost thought every eye in the place was on him. He almost got up and took himself out, but he had the good sense not to do that. He tried to blend into the crowd, into the woodwork, into anything that would keep him from standing out as the man who got these two people killed.

It was only after the graveside service was complete and people began to leave that Jarrod felt the pall begin to lift. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because filling a grave was such complete closure – a word he never believed in, except that it certainly did apply in death because no one would be getting up out of the grave. But for some reason, when everyone except him and his family, the reverend and the grave diggers were gone, he began to feel the light of day come over him again. He looked up at the sun. Something made him feel stronger, more able to cope. Something made him want to get back to his job of taking care of the Heilmans' estates. Something told him he needed to get to their house and begin the inventory – to look and see what was there, and what was not there.

"Why don't you come on home, darling, and get some rest?" Victoria said. "You didn't seem to sleep well last night."

Jarrod knew that was true, but he said, "No, I want to get over to the Heilmans' house and start the inventory."

"We can help you, Jarrod," Heath said.

"Thanks, you probably can," Jarrod said. "There will be a lot of lifting and moving things. I can let the two of you do the leg work while I do the paperwork."

Nick said, "I'll take the legwork over the paperwork any day."

"I'll drive Mother home," Audra said.

Victoria asked, "Shall we expect you for dinner?"

Jarrod nodded. "Somebody has to feed Nick."

They were happy to see at least a bit of his sense of humor was back. Victoria and Audra went on their way, and the men headed over to the Heilman house. Jarrod had the key and let them in. The startling thing about the house was the large bloodstain on the rug in the living room. The Heilmans had been found side by side, their blood mingling together just as their lives had mingled together.

Jarrod had to settle his stomach. He said, "Why don't you two roll this rug up and take it out to the back porch? I'll do a quick look around and try to get some idea of how to organize this."

Nick and Heath shed their suit jackets and ties, rolled up their sleeves and then rolled up the rug. As they carried it out the back door, Jarrod looked around at everything, getting some idea of what there was and how he would get it organized. He didn't have the boxes he would need to pack things yet, but he could get things into piles that would be ready for someone to just load them up.

He wandered around the living room and was in the bedroom when Nick and Heath came back into the house. "Where do you want to start?" Nick asked.

Jarrod took a deep breath. "Let's go through the dresser in here, pile things on top of the bed. Put the articles of clothing together and count what there is – so many shirts, so many blouses. Give me the count of each when you have them." Jarrod pulled his pencil and pad out of his inner jacket pocket. He had a new, empty pad for this job.

Jarrod continued to poke around the bedroom as Nick and Heath went through the clothing. They were pretty uncomfortable when it came to Mrs. Heilman's unmentionables, but they knew it had to be done. At one point, Heath dropped a shirt onto the floor in front of the dresser. He bent to pick it up – and he saw something.

"Jarrod – "

Jarrod looked toward him. Heath had bent to the floor and was pulling something out from under the dresser. There was only an opening of a couple inches between the bottom of the dresser and the floor, and Heath had to tug at what he'd found. He finally pulled out a leather bag.

Jarrod came over, and Heath gave him the bag. Nick stopped to watch. Wordlessly, Jarrod opened the bag, and suddenly went as straight as an arrow. He spilled the contents of the bag out onto an open spot on the bed.

Cash. Lots of greenbacks.

"Why didn't Drummer take that instead of the jewelry?" Nick wondered.

"I guess he didn't find it," Jarrod said. "He'd have had to been in and out of here fast."

Heath opened the jewelry box on top of the dresser. "This is empty," he said.

The way the sheriff undoubtedly found it. They weren't looking at anything that didn't make sense – so why did Jarrod feel so much like something didn't make sense?


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Facts were swirling around in Jarrod's mind. The cash hidden and not taken. The jewelry from the jewelry box, taken. He looked around and in his mind's eye he saw Drummer in here, looking for things, looking fast. The Heilmans dead on the floor in the living room. Jarrod sat down heavily on the bed.

"What are you thinking, Jarrod?" Nick asked.

Jarrod shook his head. "This all makes sense. Drummer would grab what he could grab fast and get out of here as fast as he could, so of course he'd go for the jewelry. He didn't take the cash because he didn't take the time to find it. He didn't even take the time to tear things apart to look for it. So why is it I feel like something doesn't make sense?"

Heath thought of something. "Did Drummer know the Heilmans at all?"

"I don't know," Jarrod said. He looked up at Heath. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm wondering how he picked these people to rob," Heath said. "I mean, just looking at the house from outside, it's not a place I would pick to rob if I was looking for fast money. Did he know she had jewelry? Did he know they had cash?"

"That's a good question," Nick said.

"Yes," Jarrod agreed. "I asked it before – why would he rob the Heilmans? I never came up with an answer, but Heath, I think you just came up with the right question. It's not so much why did he rob them – it's more like how did he know they were the people to rob."

Nick said, "We need to find out how they knew each other."

"I'm not really sure how much difference it would make to know," Jarrod said, "but I just have a sneaky feeling there's more to this than we're looking at. Something's gone on we don't know about. Something about this - just sets off my warning system."

"It might not ease your guilty feeling, Jarrod," Heath said, "but maybe it might help us find that missing jewelry."

Jarrod chuckled a little. "_That_ might ease my guilty feeling," Jarrod said. "If I can get her jewelry back, it's more than I've been able to accomplish so far." Jarrod shook his head. Some thought was trying to settle in and he was trying to get it to do it. "There's something about the jewelry, something about him zeroing in on the jewelry. Like he knew it was here, and it's exactly what he wanted."

Nick repeated, "We need to find out how they knew each other."

"Here's something else to think about," Heath said. "If Drummer and the Heilmans didn't know each other at all – maybe Eben Chase was wrong and it wasn't Drummer who ran out of here. Maybe it was somebody else – somebody who has the jewelry."

Jarrod shook his head. "That's reaching too far, I think, Heath. Eben doesn't lie, and he was close enough to see it was Drummer running away from here. And Drummer was running, that's for sure."

"I wouldn't rule anything out, though, Jarrod," Heath said. "Remember, you've been beating yourself up for leaving stones unturned. I wouldn't leave even a one of them unturned this time, even if it is reaching a bit far and doesn't end up going anywhere. Besides, that jewelry has to be somewhere."

Jarrod looked up at his brothers. "You're right."

"What do you want us to do, Jarrod?" Nick asked.

Jarrod chewed his lip a bit, then said, "Nick, do you have time to go talk to Carl Wheeler about Michael Drummer? I talked to him before the trial, but a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then."

"What do you want me to find out?" Nick asked.

"Talk to Carl and any of his hands you can talk to. Find out what Drummer was up to just in general – where did he go for fun, did he do anything on the side in town. Anything that might tell us how he knew the Heilmans. And find out anything you can about this hand that heard Drummer threaten March. If there's more to know about that, I don't care if the trial is over and done. I want to know if Drummer killed March, too."

"Heck, Jarrod, this is all tough stuff. It's gonna take a while to get at."

Jarrod nodded. "I know, but some way, somehow, Drummer knew what was in this house. At least he knew about the jewelry. And he might just be responsible for March's death, too. I need to know."

"All right," Nick said. "I'll go see Carl tomorrow."

"What else do you want us to do, Jarrod?" Heath asked.

Jarrod rubbed his forehead. He remembered Reverend Johnson's words about not rushing things. "Let's keep on getting the inventory together for now. I need more time to think."

XXXXXX

When they finished at the Heilmans' for the day, Jarrod concentrated on the Heilmans' estates and getting the paperwork started, while Nick and Heath got back to work on the ranch. As he promised, Nick did head over the Carl Wheeler's place the next day and found the man out with his own men and his herd, doing his own tally of his cattle. When Nick rode up, Carl put his pad and pencil into his shirt pocket, asking, "Nick. How's it going?"

"It goes all right," Nick said. "I wonder if I can talk to you for a few minutes."

Carl said, "Sure. Let's get some coffee."

They headed over to the chuck wagon, where they dismounted and the cook gave them a couple cups of coffee. They stood drinking, Carl watching his cattle and his men while Nick talked.

"Jarrod's the executor of the Heilmans' wills and I'm trying to help him out a little bit," Nick said.

"I was afraid you were here to talk about them," Carl said. "Look, Nick, I was as surprised as anybody that Drummer killed them and took off. I never saw it coming."

"Did you know him very well?"

"No, not real well, but enough to kick myself for being so wrong about him. Even when he was charged with killing the March kid I was surprised and I let him go even though he was cleared, just to be safe. Now I think maybe if I'd kept him on, he wouldn't have robbed and killed the Heilmans."

_Great_, Nick thought. _Somebody else feeling guilty for Drummer._"I'm not here to blame you for that, Carl. God knows, I've got a brother who's blaming himself enough for it."

"Yeah, I figured Jarrod would be beating himself up over getting Drummer off."

"Did you know one of your boys has been saying that Drummer said he was gonna kill March after that fight they had?"

Carl looked at Nick, surprised. "No, I didn't. Where'd you hear that?"

"Harry overheard it in his saloon, after the Heilmans were killed."

"Who said it?"

"It was just one of your boys, Carl. Harry couldn't tell who. But the only reason I care about it is that my brother needs to settle his mind, even if the answer is that Drummer did kill March after all. And you know Jarrod. He's like a dog with a bone once he needs to know something."

"Yeah," Carl said.

"Maybe you or one of your boys could help me figure out how Drummer knew the Heilmans. Jarrod figures the boy had somehow been in the Heilman house before he robbed it. Somehow he knew there was jewelry in there to take. Jarrod's trying to figure out where it is now and it got him to thinking how Drummer knew the Heilmans had anything worth taking."

Carl sipped his coffee. "That's a really good question. I hadn't even thought about it. Even though I'm not too sure it'll mean anything in the long run."

"Do you know which of your boys might have known Drummer well enough to help me out?"

"If any of them do, they're likely to keep their mouths shut, like they did before the trial. You better let me talk to my foreman first. Maybe he might have some ideas. Jarrod's in a big hurry to find this jewelry, huh?"

"It looks like Drummer stashed it somewhere before the posse caught up to him. Jarrod just wants to find it before somebody else does."

"I'll see what I can do and get back to you in a day or two, and I'll let you talk to whoever you want, if they'll talk to you," Carl said. Then he mulled it over. "Drummer knew the Heilmans. You're right. He wouldn't have just gone into that house cold looking for anything. Too chancy in town. He had to know there was something in there."

"I appreciate the help, Carl," Nick said. "If Jarrod can find out the truth about Drummer and March and get this jewelry back and get the Heilmans' estates straightened out, it'll help him get over this guilt over Drummer he's carrying around."

"Might help me, too," Carl said.

XXXXX

Jarrod hired a couple of local men in town that he trusted, and they were finished inventorying and packing up the Heilmans' belongings within two days. Jarrod took the cash he'd found to the bank, opened an account for the estates and put the cash in there, along with the money already in the Heilmans bank account. After that, it was a matter of getting the boxed up items and the furniture to an auctioneer, which Stockton had only one of.

There were no more surprises in the house, no more hidden cash or jewelry or anything valuable. There were only the regular leavings of a good man and his wife. As Jarrod looked the boxes and furniture over, once he was all finished with the inventory, he grew sad again. Fine people, decent people, just gone, and in a matter of days, all that they had and all that they were was ready to be shipped out and sold to whoever would buy it. Before the end of the month, it would be as if the Heilmans had never existed at all.

_And that's the way of the world_, Jarrod thought. _Packed up and forgotten, just like all the rest of us._

But Jarrod resolved he wouldn't forget. The Heilmans were good people, and he would see that their affairs were well taken care of. He wouldn't ease off until he had answers, and justice.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It was after Jarrod was through with the inventory before Nick had more information from Carl Wheeler. Jarrod was unhappy that so much time was going by without finding out where the jewelry was, and he was beginning to resign himself to the idea that they would never find it. When Nick and Heath came in from work that day, Jarrod was already home and nursing a scotch alone in the living room, sitting in his thinking chair and hoping to get some help from it. He looked up when Nick came over to him, removing his gloves.

"Carl Wheeler came by today," Nick said. "He talked to his foreman and a couple of his hands, and now he's as itchy as you are."

Jarrod got up. "What did he say?"

Heath came in and over to them. Nick said, "He's nailed down who said Drummer threatened March, but now the man denies he said it. Carl doesn't believe him. He thinks the man did say it, because this guy hung around with Drummer a lot and was in town with him the night of the fight."

"What's the man's name?" Jarrod asked.

Nick hesitated, but Heath remembered. "Lon Gill. Nick and I thought we'd head over there in the morning and have our own chat with him."

"Carl's all right with that?" Jarrod asked.

Nick nodded. "We'll see if he knows anything about how Drummer knew the Heilmans. Carl didn't think he did, but we'll check it out. You through with that inventory yet?"

Jarrod nodded. "I finished it up today. I just need to get the auctioneer in and get the place cleaned up. Then I'll put it on the market."

"Moving fast, aren't you?" Heath asked.

"I'm not expecting any debtors to crop up," Jarrod said, "but the notices are out. When people don't have debts or mortgages or family, you can get things straightened out fairly quickly. Sad, but true. Nobody cares about you if you don't owe them any money."

"Who did they leave their money to?" Nick asked.

"The church and the orphanage. I'd like to get it distributed as soon as possible."

"I'm not sure we're ever gonna find that jewelry, Jarrod," Heath said.

"Well, just in case, I'm going to wire some pawn shops in the general area, down toward Merced since Drummer supposedly had family down there, just to see if it turns up, and I'll have the auctioneer keep an eye out, too," Jarrod said. Then he sighed. "I'm running out of rocks to turn over."

"Maybe I'll find out something at Carl's tomorrow," Nick said. "You want to come along?"

"Might not be a bad idea," Heath said when Jarrod hesitated. "I'll stay here and let you two handle it. Between you and the law and Nick and his fists, you might scare the truth out of somebody."

Jarrod chuckled. He hadn't had much of a smile over the last week or so, and it was good to see. "You might be right."

XXXXXXXXX

The Barkley men were up early and at the Wheeler ranch before the day shift men left the bunkhouses. Carl met them as they rode in, aware that they'd be coming when they did. "I want to be with you when you talk to Gill, and I want the others around, too," Carl said. "We might need all the pressure we can get on Gill."

"All right," Jarrod said. "Let's go."

They went into the bunkhouse to find the men finishing breakfast and beginning to get ready to go out. There were eight men in there now, and they all stopped what they were doing and looked at Carl and the Barkleys.

"Okay," Carl said, "we can do this fast. Everybody knows that Michael Drummer is dead and it looks like he killed those two old folks in town. The Barkleys have some questions for you – especially you, Gill."

A man as average-looking as a man could get said, "Me?"

Carl said, "You knew Drummer best. Just help the Barkleys out."

The other men looked at Gill, and then everyone just stood there. Jarrod stepped forward a little. "The word is that you heard Drummer threaten to kill March after that fight they had."

"That?" Gill said. "That's all over and done, Mr. Barkley. You got him off that charge."

"Maybe because you didn't say that before the trial," Jarrod said. "It doesn't matter much to the law anymore. I'm not gonna insist you get prosecuted for holding it back, but is it true? Did Drummer threaten to kill March?"

Gill looked around nervously, but he finally said, "Yeah, I heard him say that. I didn't take it serious, though. You had to know Drummer. He threatened a lot and never did anything."

"So you just assumed what he said didn't mean anything?" Jarrod asked.

"Yeah," Gill said.

Jarrod looked around. "How about the rest of you? Do any of you know anything about Drummer and March and whether he might have actually killed him?"

No one said anything. Nick glared, just to help Jarrod out, but still, no one spoke up.

"How about the Heilmans?" Jarrod asked. "Do any of you know how Drummer knew the Heilmans?"

"Didn't know he knew them," one of the other men said.

"How about you, Gill?" Jarrod asked. "What do you know – and this time you'd better talk if you have anything to say, because this investigation is still open and you can be arrested if you're hiding anything."

Gill shifted nervously.

"And you'll get fired if you get arrested," Carl said.

"All right, all right," Gill finally gave in. "He didn't really know those folks, but once when him and me were in town, before March got killed, we saw them at the mercantile. Mrs. Heilman had a lot of things she was buying, and Drummer helped her take them home. That's all I know. He didn't really know them, far as I know."

"Did he go into the Heilmans' house?" Jarrod asked.

"I don't know, I didn't see, but I reckon he did since he was carrying stuff," Gill said. Then he looked at Carl. "Boss, that's all I know. I don't know if Drummer killed March, and if he stole what they say he stole from the Heilmans, I don't know where he put it."

Carl looked around at the other men. "If any of you know anything about Drummer and you're holding it back, it'll cost you your job. If you don't want to talk right now but you decide you want to later, you come to me, you got that?"

Heads nodded.

"Get out and get to work," Carl said, and the men all left in a hurry.

"Well, we know a little more than we did," Nick said.

Jarrod looked at Carl. "What do you think? Was anybody holding back?"

"I don't know," Carl said. "They're gonna start talking to one another out there, and there's no telling if somebody else is gonna come to me or not. I'm sorry, Jarrod. I wish I could get something more solid for you."

"Maybe you will, in time," Nick said. "You come to me if you do."

"You know I will," Carl said.

The Barkleys headed home, but they traveled in silence, Jarrod scowling in thought all the way. When they got onto the property, Nick peeled off to go back to work. Still lost in thought, Jarrod said good-bye and headed to the house, but once he dismounted there and handed his horse off to Ciego, he was a bit lost. Not quite sure what to do with himself now.

Did he need to think, or did he need to stop thinking?

"You're doing it again," his mother's voice came to him.

He didn't even know she was there, walking up toward him. "Doing what?"

"Going off inside your head," Victoria said. "Did you learn anything helpful at Carl's?"

Jarrod nodded. "A bit. I'm not sure what to do with it though."

"Audra and I are about to beat some rugs," Victoria said. "Perhaps if you take a few whacks with us, things will come to you."

Jarrod laughed. It was good to see him laugh, Victoria thought. "As much fun as that sounds, I'd better get myself into the office. I still have a contract with the auctioneer to sign and I want to let Fred know what we found out today. Maybe talking it out with him will help my thoughts come together."

"I hope so," Victoria said. "But you remember how it went with Nick after Jack Follet was killed."

Jarrod remembered. They never found out who killed Follet, but Nick was the last to fight with him, and there was a chance he was dead because of the fight. Nick suffered over that, never knowing if he was responsible for killing the man or not, even if the coroner's jury found that "person or persons unknown" were responsible. It took a good while for Nick to let go of the guilt, and he never did let go of it all. Bring up the subject, and you could still see it in his eyes, like Jarrod saw it a few days ago.

Jarrod sighed, knowing he could be heading down the same path of never having the answers he so desperately wanted. "I remember," Jarrod said, "and I remember what we said to him then. I'll keep myself steady, Mother."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Very suddenly, the next day, Jarrod was finishing up some work on another case in his office when he secretary brought him a telegram. "Mr. Barkley, this just came for you."

"Thank you, Angie," Jarrod said, took it, and opened it.

And there it was. The auctioneer handling the Heilmans' property had wired nearby auctioneers about the jewelry and had them wire Jarrod if anything came up. An auctioneer in Merced had someone bring him some jewelry. There was no telling whether it was Mrs. Heilman's or not, but it was the only lead he'd gotten. Now, what to do with it?

Check it out, and Jarrod remembered, Planada was not that far from Merced. That's where Drummer's brother was supposed to be. Jarrod wasn't sure why this supposed brother was still playing in the back of his mind, but he was. Maybe it would pay to go have a talk with that man, too.

Jarrod had another thought. Before he left town, he checked with Sheriff Madden about something he should have asked about before now. "Fred, have there been other thefts of jewelry around town lately? Thefts you haven't been able to solve?"

The sheriff nodded. "There have, three of them I know of. I looked into them one more time since the Heilmans were robbed, but I never figured out anything more. No one ever saw the thefts occur."

"Daytime?"

"One. Two during the night. Are you thinking Drummer might have been responsible for them too? The thought crossed my mind, but I don't have anything to prove it."

"I'm thinking lots of things, and I'm going down to Planada to talk to Drummer's brother. Something's going on – I just know it. I just don't know what it is yet."

XXXXXXX

"You going alone?" was the first thing Nick asked that evening when Jarrod told the family he'd be leaving in the morning.

"There's no need for you and Heath to come along," Jarrod said. "There's no danger for me down there. Just information."

"How will you tell if it's Mrs. Heilman's jewelry or not?" Heath asked.

Jarrod hesitated.

Audra quickly said, "I remember a couple of pieces she used to wear to church. I told her more than once I thought they were beautiful. I can describe them to you, Jarrod."

"Good," Jarrod said. "We'll talk about it after dinner, and I'll catch the morning train to Merced. I plan to go by Planada too, so I'll be gone a couple days."

"To see Drummer's brother?" Heath asked.

Jarrod nodded. "Express my condolences, see if I can find out anything else I didn't know about him, IF I can even find this brother."

"Do you think you can get the jewelry back if it's Mrs. Heilman's?" Heath asked.

"I'll definitely try to," Jarrod said.

"Is there anything we need to be aware of while you're gone, Jarrod?" Victoria asked.

Jarrod shook his head. "Nick, Heath, you can just check in with Carl Wheeler and see if he knows anything more, maybe talk to Harry, too. I can't do much more with the Heilmans' estates until the notice periods run, and that's another couple weeks. I'll get the house cleaned and on the market when I get back."

"It's so wonderful they left their money to the church and the orphanage," Audra said. "They both can use every little bit they can get."

"The Heilmans were very good people," Victoria said.

Jarrod felt another pang of guilt run through him. He shrugged it off, knowing that if he ever wanted to get it under control, he was going to have to learn to let it roll off his back. "That they were," he said, and left it at that.

XXXXXXXX

It took several hours to get to Merced even by train, so it was just past noon when Jarrod got off and headed for the auctioneer's place. When he went inside, he found what he expected – a small office area with a case full of estate jewelry, and a doorway to a room in back where larger items were kept. No one was around when he came in, so Jarrod went straight to the jewelry case and started looking.

There was a lot of jewelry in the case, some of it quite expensive looking, some of it more mundane. Audra had described several pieces of Mrs. Heilman's jewelry to Jarrod the night before – thank heaven for little sisters who liked jewelry. Jarrod took his notes out of his pocket, read them over, and looked over the jewelry again.

A man came out of the back. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"I'm Jarrod Barkley, from Stockton," Jarrod said.

"Oh, yes, about the jewelry. Here it is – over here."

The man pointed to an area on Jarrod's far left in the case. Jarrod looked closely – and he saw it. A broach with a blue stone surrounded by small diamonds. And then he saw diamond earrings and another broach, this one with small rubies in a flower pattern setting. Just as Audra had described them. Relief washed through him. "These are what I'm looking for," Jarrod said. "Who brought them in?"

"Somebody I've seen around town now and then."

"Did you get a name?" Jarrod asked, but not counting on the man having given his real name.

"Let me check my records," the auctioneer said, and he went to the desk behind the counter and fished around in a drawer. "Samuel Perkins," the auctioneer said and brought the receipt over. He gave it to Jarrod.

Jarrod read it. The auctioneer had given a hundred dollars for the lot. He wasn't going to part with this jewelry very willingly, unless he got some money for it. Jarrod knew receiving stolen goods was not going to look good for the auctioneer and he'd want to avoid it. "How much more of this came in with these two pieces?"

The auctioneer pointed out four necklaces and a pair of pearl earrings.

"I'll give you fifty for the lot. You and I can split the loss and you can keep the leather bag it came in."

The auctioneer knew that Jarrod knew there could be trouble for him taking the jewelry in, so even if he didn't think much of the price, he said, "Sold."

Jarrod took out his wallet as the auctioneer took the jewelry out of the case. Jarrod thought about something else as he peeled off fifty dollars from his wallet. Samuel Perkins. Michael Drummer's brother's first name was Samuel. "This Perkins fellow – you say you've seen him around town?"

"Yeah," the auctioneer said as he put the jewelry into a cloth bag.

"Could you hazard a guess where he lives?"

"There's the address he gave me on the receipt. I never even talked to him before, but since I'd seen him around, I took the jewelry."

Jarrod checked the address, handed over the cash and took the jewelry from the auctioneer. He put his wallet back into his inside jacket pocket. The jewelry fit in there, too, even if it did make a bulge. "Can you describe the man to me? How tall was he?"

"About your size, maybe a bit shorter. Younger than you. Dark hair but not as dark as yours and pretty curly. Brown eyes. Pretty average looking."

"Did he have any scars, any distinguishing marks?"

The auctioneer thought about it. "He had a scar on the back of his left hand. Not a cut – more like a burn scar. On his face – no, nothing really."

"What kind of clothes did he wear?"

"Just work clothes. I was surprised he had jewelry like this. He said it belonged to his brother's dead wife and his brother had just died, so he was getting rid of it."

His brother had just died. Jarrod felt that curious itch he often got when something was beginning to make sense to him. Jarrod nodded and said, "Thanks for your help."

"Let me have a crack at getting rid of that jewelry for you if you decide to sell it."

Jarrod smiled. Merced would be a good town to try to sell the jewelry in. "I'm executor for the estate these things belong to. I might just take you up on that."

The auctioneer finally smiled, too.

Jarrod headed out and directly for the address on the receipt. He knew the street name, found it easily, and headed for the building number. It turned out that the street ran out a block before it got to that number. Jarrod wasn't surprised the address was phony. It actually made him happy. He was on the right track.

Jarrod went to the sheriff's office. He knew the sheriff in Merced, having had a couple trials here before. He and Sheriff Stow were on decent terms, so when Jarrod went into the office and the sheriff looked up from his desk, they smiled at each other and Jarrod reached out a hand.

"Jarrod Barkley," the sheriff said, shaking the lawyer's hand. "Now, I don't even have anybody in my jail. What brings you to Merced?"

"A problem out of Stockton," Jarrod said. "I'm executor of the estate of a couple who were murdered up there a few days ago. The wife's jewelry was stolen, and I just found it at the auctioneer here where somebody had sold it and gave him a fake address. I don't want to press charges for receiving stolen property or anything like that. I just cut a deal and bought the jewelry back. What I do need help with is finding the man who brought it to the auctioneer in the first place."

"You think he's the one who stole it?"

"No. The man who actually stole it and murdered the couple is dead, but I have a sneaking suspicion the man who turned in the jewelry might be that man's brother. Something I need to check out. The fella lives over in Planada. I'd like to go see him. I wonder if you know him."

"What's the man's name?"

"Samuel Drummer, but the man who sold the jewelry to the auctioneer called himself Samuel Perkins. I got a description. About my height, younger, dark curly hair, brown eyes, burn scar on the back of his left hand."

The sheriff shook his head, thinking. "I don't know this Drummer fella, or anybody here that really fits that description."

"I can make an excuse to see Drummer other than this jewelry. I defended his brother on another murder charge, and I took care of burying my client up in Stockton. I can just say I was down this way and making a condolence call."

"Sounds like a good approach to me. If you see him and you think he is this Perkins fella, come back to me. We'll go lean on him a bit and see if there's anything fishy going on."

Jarrod nodded. "I'm going to get some food into me and then I'll check in at the hotel. I'll spend the night there, and I'll come talk to you again regardless of what I find."

"And if you don't come back, I'll head over to Planada tomorrow and see if you've gotten yourself shot or something."

Jarrod chuckled a little. "I don't think it'll come to that, Al. I might get my nose broken, but even that's unlikely."

"They don't even have a sheriff in Planada, so you'll fall into my jurisdiction if you do. One way or another, I'll see you later, Jarrod. Be careful."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jarrod got a horse at the livery stable in Merced and headed for Planada, about ten miles away. It took an hour or more to get there, and then he had to find out where this Samuel Drummer lived. Fortunately, the local barber was not busy and Jarrod got the directions from him after enduring a few minutes of local news that didn't help him any, and explaining it was Samuel Perkins he was looking for.

Samuel Drummer/Perkins lived just outside the western side of town, in an old way station for a highway no one used anymore. Pulling up to the place, Jarrod dismounted – and the said Samuel Drummer/Perkins appeared on the front porch, carrying a rifle. He was a man about Jarrod's height but younger and had curly brown hair. Jarrod tipped his hat. "Afternoon. My name is Jarrod Barkley. I'm looking for Samuel Drummer."

"Why?" the man with the rifle asked.

Jarrod stopped where he was. "I was his brother's attorney. I was in Merced on business and I thought I'd stop by and let him know where Michael was buried, and give my condolences."

The man eyed him, then let the rifle fall. "What else do you want?"

Jarrod noticed that Drummer hadn't yet acknowledged Michael Drummer was even his brother, or even that he really was Samuel Drummer at all. Jarrod kept talking. "Frankly, Mr. Drummer, some question has come up whether Michael was really innocent or not."

Drummer scowled. "Why should I care about some Michael Drummer?"

"I heard he was your brother."

"Don't know him," Drummer said.

"Somebody's come forward saying he threatened to kill the man who was killed," Jarrod went on anyway, "and Michael is being called responsible for the deaths of an elderly couple in Stockton."

"I don't know anything about that," Drummer said.

"Since he's dead, it's not a question that will ever be decided," Jarrod said. "He's accused of stealing some jewelry from the couple he's said to have killed. He was seen riding away from their house. Do you know anything about the jewelry?"

"Not a thing about any of that," the man said, and for a moment it looked like he was going to raise that rifle again.

Jarrod tried to catch a look at the back of the man's left hand, but Drummer did not raise the rifle again. Jarrod took his hat off and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "I'll be going then," he said. "It's a hot day. Do you mind if I water my horse?"

Drummer nodded toward the watering trough to Jarrod's left. "Help yourself."

"I liked Michael," Jarrod said as he led his horse over to the trough. "I didn't think he killed the man I defended him about. As for the couple in Stockton, I don't know anything for sure, but I'm the executor under their wills and if I can locate the jewelry Michael's supposed to have stolen, it will help me do my job."

"I don't know anything about that," Drummer said, still watching Jarrod carefully.

When the horse finished drinking, Jarrod walked back a bit closer to the porch where Drummer stood. "Well, I am sorry about all of it, Mr. Drummer," he said. "I'm sorry your brother got killed. He's buried in the town cemetery in Stockton, if you want to come see him."

Drummer said, "I told you, I don't know him," and as he shifted the rifle from one hand to another, Jarrod caught a look at the back of his left hand – and the scar.

Jarrod remounted and tipped his hat. "Good day to you, sir," he said, and he rode back up to the road and turned the bend to head toward Merced. Where he stopped.

He pulled his horse to the side of the road to take advantage of the cover of the trees. From there, he could see the very front of Drummer's yard, and he stayed and watched. He knew, absolutely knew, that Drummer was lying about not knowing Michael Drummer – he certainly had lied about the jewelry. He was going to come out and make a run for it, probably heading away from Merced. Jarrod knew that Drummer was feeling squeezed because he had talked about the jewelry. Jarrod intended to be ready when Drummer came out and took off.

Which didn't take long. Drummer came out from the barn, leading his horse, and as he mounted up, Jarrod came out from behind the trees. "One more thing, Mr. Drummer!" he called.

Drummer froze, in the saddle and holding onto the reins. Jarrod could see the rifle in the man's scabbard.

Jarrod said, "I think you and I should take a ride into Merced and have you pay a visit to the sheriff and the auctioneer about the jewelry you sold."

"I didn't sell any jewelry," Drummer said.

"That's not what the auctioneer said," Jarrod said. "Unless you have a twin brother with the same scar on your hand, you sold the jewelry that belonged to that Stockton couple to the auctioneer there."

"You got no authority to take me in," Drummer said, and he started to ride away.

Jarrod quickly rode ahead and blocked him, but as he did, Drummer pulled his rifle out of its scabbard. Jarrod kicked his horse into motion to get it out of the way and dove onto the ground. He came up with his gun drawn, but Drummer was still firing. Two more shots, and Drummer kicked his horse and was tearing down the road.

Jarrod got to his feet, his leg a little twisted but not hurt otherwise. His horse had stopped about a quarter mile down the road and Jarrod hurried to it as fast as he could, but he was limping. He knew Drummer was getting away and he couldn't do anything about it. He swore and tried to stretch the muscle in his leg that was hurting. In a couple minutes, he had reached his horse and was mounting up. "We messed that one up, didn't we, buddy?" he said and gave his horse a pat on the neck.

Jarrod went back up to Drummer's house and thought he would check to see if the door was unlocked. He didn't want to break in, but if he could just sort of let himself in, he'd have an argument that he hadn't broken any law. He dismounted and went up to the door. For the record, he knocked, and when no one answered, he turned the knob. The door opened. He went in.

The place was a mess. Drummer obviously lived alone. Jarrod nosed around for a dog or a cat, but there wasn't even a mouse running around in here that he could find. He saw some papers on a kitchen table and took a look. Letters, telegrams, just mail. Jarrod picked up a couple of the telegrams and read them.

One of them caught his attention. It was dated by the telegrapher the day before Michael Drummer had robbed the Heilmans, after he had been acquitted of murdering March. It was a curious telegram. It said, "D628." That was all. Jarrod looked at the other telegrams. One from Michael said he'd been acquitted, but three others also had cryptic messages – "D601," "D520," "D509."

Jarrod knew it was some kind of code, and he knew right away the numbers were dates – June 28, June 1, May 20, and May 9. All recent dates. "D628" was the last one. June 28 was the day Michael Drummer had robbed and killed the Heilmans. But what did the "D" stand for?

Jarrod pocketed the telegrams and looked around some more for anything lying in plain sight, but nothing else caught his attention. He left, mounted up and headed back toward Merced, thinking. If Michael told his brother "June 28," it had to be he was letting Samuel know when he was going to rob the Heilmans. And somehow, before he was caught and killed, Michael had managed to get the jewelry to Samuel – but how?

There was really only one way. Michael was caught only six miles or so from Stockton. He had to have left the jewelry hidden somewhere on the road for Samuel to come get so he could hock it for cash, which he and Michael would probably then split. "D" had to be some kind of code telling Samuel where to find the jewelry. There was only one answer, Jarrod thought, especially when he considered the other telegrams with the other dates. Michael and Samuel had some kind of pre-arranged drop sites where Michael would leave stolen goods or cash, maybe more than one drop. The "D" was telling Samuel where to pick up whatever Michael planned to leave for him and the date it would be when Michael would leave it. Samuel got the Heilman jewelry from that drop.

Jarrod was angry with himself for letting Samuel get away, but at least he had some answers, and at least he had the jewelry. Jarrod made his way back to Merced and the sheriff's office there. He showed the sheriff the telegrams, told him that Samuel Drummer had run off, and shared his notion of what the Drummer brothers had been up to.

The sheriff nodded. "Looks like you might be right. I'll talk to the auctioneer, but he's got a pretty honest reputation. I doubt he'd be the one passing through whatever those Drummer boys had stolen."

"I agree with you there," Jarrod said. "He sent word about this jewelry almost as soon as he got the telegram about it, and he wouldn't have done that if he was knowingly fencing for the Drummers."

"I'll have to get a wanted out on Sam Drummer," the sheriff said. "And we might need that jewelry as evidence if we catch him."

Jarrod nodded. "I'd like to hold onto it though. If you don't catch Samuel Drummer, I'd like to get these things sold and the estate moneys distributed as soon as possible. The money is going to a church and the orphanage."

"When do you think you can do that?"

"Not for a couple weeks at the earliest. By then we ought to have some idea if you're going to find Samuel or not."

The sheriff nodded and leveled a gaze at Jarrod. "You still don't know whether Michael Drummer really killed the man you got him free on, do you?"

Jarrod didn't like thinking about that. Getting the goods on Samuel Drummer and getting the Heilman jewelry back helped him feel a little better, but not when he thought about the dead man named March and the dead Heilmans. "No, I don't know, and maybe I never will."

"Can you live with that?"

"I might have to," Jarrod said. It still tore him up inside, but he knew he might have to.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Jarrod was on the train back to Stockton the next morning, arriving in the afternoon. He had left his horse at the livery, but he stopped by his office before picking it up to head home. His secretary was there, and she had a big smile for him when he came in. "Do you have good luck?" she asked.

"Partly," Jarrod said. "I found the jewelry, but I didn't get the man who sold it to the auctioneer. It was Michael Drummer's brother, Samuel."

"Oh," his secretary said. "In that case, I think there's a message you'll be interested in on your desk."

"From whom?" Jarrod asked.

"The sheriff in Merced," she said. "It came about half an hour ago."

Jarrod hurried into his desk, where he saw the message waiting. He quickly picked it up and read it. _Drummer turned himself in,_ it said. Jarrod couldn't believe what he was reading. Why in the world would Drummer turn himself in when he was getting clean away?

"This doesn't make any sense," Jarrod said to himself, out loud.

Standing in the doorway, his secretary heard him. "Not what you expected?" she asked.

"Not at all," Jarrod said. "Drummer was getting away. Why would he turn himself in?"

"Maybe he wasn't getting away," his secretary said.

"Oh, no, he was," Jarrod said. Totally perplexed, he put the message into his coat pocket, and then he noticed he still had the jewelry there. He took it out and took it to his safe in the alcove. "Angie, telegraph back to the sheriff in Merced. One word – why?"

"All right," Angie said. "Are you staying here or heading home?"

After Jarrod put the jewelry in his safe, he came back out of the alcove, saying, "Heading home, after I see Sheriff Madden. If a response comes today from the sheriff in Merced, have it taken over to Sheriff Madden."

"You're not going to drive yourself crazy with curiosity if you don't find out the 'why' today, are you?"

Jarrod sighed. "I'm already driving myself crazy over this Drummer business," he said. "One bit more isn't going to hurt me any."

XXXXXXX

Sheriff Madden shook his head, too, when he read the wire from the sheriff in Merced. "Well, you're right, that makes no sense at all. Are you going to head back down there?"

"I don't know," Jarrod said. "I've got the jewelry. That's mainly what I went for, but I went to have this whole Drummer business figured out too, and I thought I had it figured out, even if I didn't like what it was figuring to. Now I don't know what the heck is going on."

"Did you wire the Merced sheriff back?"

"Yeah, I asked him why Drummer turned himself in. I asked my secretary to bring the response to you if one comes today."

"You don't suppose he doesn't really have Samuel Drummer, do you?"

"Why would anybody else turn himself in saying he was Samuel Drummer? It makes no sense."

Sheriff Madden huffed a sigh. "None of this makes any sense."

Jarrod sat down, rubbing his forehead to get rid of the headache that was coming his way. "I might have to go back down there after all. Something isn't right."

"That doesn't mean it's up to you to fix it, Jarrod," Sheriff Madden said.

Jarrod said, "I know that, but this whole case – the March killing, the Heilman killings, the jewelry robbery – it's driving me crazy."

"It is a crazy mixed up bunch of confusion, I'll grant you that," Sheriff Madden said. "But none of it is your fault. Surely you've gotten over that by now."

Jarrod eyed him for a moment, then looked away. "A bit, maybe, but it still eats at me. The Heilmans would still be alive if I hadn't gotten Michael Drummer off."

"Maybe you ought to start questioning that, too."

Jarrod was startled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean – was it really Michael Drummer who killed them?"

"Oh, come on, Fred. If there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that Michael Drummer robbed and killed those people. Eben Chase saw him running away from the house, and we know he'd been in there before and had to know about the jewelry. And he tried to shoot his way out of being taken in by the posse."

"I'm not doubting Eben at all," Sheriff Madden said. "But I think maybe we ought to be questioning everything. We may have to do that before any of this makes sense."

Turn over every rock this time, Jarrod remembered Heath saying. But now, every time he turned over a rock, all he found were two more rocks.

"I'll talk to Eben again," Sheriff Madden said. "I'll make sure he knows what Michael Drummer looked like and that it was Drummer he saw running away from the Heilmans'."

"All right," Jarrod said. "I'm heading home. I'll talk to you tomorrow about what the sheriff from Merced says, unless you think I need to know right away."

Sheriff Madden nodded. "Try not to think too much. You get some pretty good ideas when you're not thinking."

Jarrod smiled a little, and then he went out the door to head home. Maybe Sheriff Madden had just given him good advice.

XXXXXX

"Aw, now, that doesn't make a bit of sense," Nick said when Jarrod told the family about the latest developments in this crazy case.

"No, it doesn't," Jarrod said, "at least not yet. There was no reason for Samuel Drummer to turn himself in."

It was Heath who said, "I can think of one reason."

Everybody looked at him. He looked up at Jarrod.

"The man you chased isn't Samuel Drummer," Heath said.

It took a moment, but Jarrod understood. "The man who turned himself in isn't the man I tried to bring in." Now it clicked for Jarrod. Of course, that was the only thing that made sense. Jarrod remembered the man who ran from him never admitted to being Michael Drummer's brother Samuel, and he wasn't. The man who turned himself in was. But it still left him with questions, like, "But why would this be going on? The man I chased is the one who pawned the jewelry, so he did claim to be this Samuel Perkins and he was working with Michael Drummer, because he had the jewelry Michael Drummer stole. If this other guy really is Samuel Drummer, what does he have to do with it other than being Michael Drummer's brother? And why did Perkins have the jewelry and Drummer didn't?"

Heath shrugged. "I don't know. I had a hard enough time just coming up with what I came up with."

Jarrod had to chuckle a little. "It was more than I came up with."

"Wait just a minute," Victoria said. "You need to be sure you're not just running off in the wrong direction because you don't know what other direction to run in."

"I know," Jarrod said. "But Heath has a point, even if it does stir up the waters even more."

"Why would somebody pretend to be Michael Drummer's brother?" Nick asked.

"Right now, I'm not sure this Samuel Perkins ever did claim to be Drummer's brother, but that's a question we have to ask if Heath is right," Jarrod said. "Among all the other questions."

Audra asked, "What would the advantage be to a man to pretend to be Drummer's brother if he isn't?"

"I don't see any advantage to the guy who turned himself in," Nick said.

"Unless he is the real Samuel Drummer and wants to get out from under trouble he wasn't the cause of," Jarrod said.

"Then we have to ask why someone else would impersonate him," Victoria said. "The man who ran away."

"If he ever did impersonate him, and who is he and what did he have to do with Michael Drummer. And that's gonna send me back to Merced," Jarrod said.

Nick shook his head. "Jarrod, you could just let this all go. You have better things to do, and none of it is gonna help you with the problem you started out with – easing your conscience over Michael Drummer."

"Maybe not," Jarrod said. "But on the other hand, I wouldn't want to see the wrong man stay in trouble just because he really was Samuel Drummer and the man who got away from me was really somebody else. I'm gonna have to go back down there and see if I can help."

"All right," Victoria said, "but not tonight. You get some sleep tonight. You'll think more clearly in the morning."

"I hope so," Jarrod said, "because I've still only got a little piece of something that seems to make any sense, and the rest of it is more confusing than it ever was."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Jarrod checked with Sheriff Madden before he left on the morning train to go back to Merced. The Merced sheriff had not wired back yet, so whatever clearing up could be done would have to be done in Merced. Half way there, Jarrod suddenly couldn't remember which direction he was going – was it to Merced or was it to Stockton? He finally knew where he was when the train rolled into Merced.

Jarrod went straight to the sheriff's office. He no sooner came in the door before the sheriff motioned him back to the cellblock. Jarrod followed, and saw a young man with dusty colored hair lying on the cot in one of the cells. The sheriff asked, "Is this the man who ran away from you the day before yesterday?"

Jarrod shook his head. "No. I never met this man before."

"But you say your name is Samuel Drummer," the sheriff said to the man.

"Like I told you, sheriff," the young man said. "My name is Samuel Drummer, I live outside Turlock, I work on a ranch just outside of town. Somebody was here and said you were putting a poster out on me and I couldn't figure out why but my boss said I'd better come clear it up or he'd haul me over here."

"Did you have a brother named Michael Drummer?" Jarrod asked.

"I did, and I still do," Samuel said. "He works on a spread near Lodi."

"He's not dead in Stockton?" Jarrod asked.

"I got a letter from him the day before yesterday. He was in Lodi, and he was fine. Now, can I just get out of here and go back to work?"

Jarrod said to the sheriff, "This isn't the man who sold the jewelry to the auctioneer. Somebody is using your name, son, and somebody was using your brother's name."

"Somebody dead in Stockton," Samuel said.

Jarrod nodded.

The sheriff let the boy out of the cell. "I hope you can clear this up, Sheriff," Samuel said. "I don't need wanted posters hanging over my head."

"I'll have to call back the ones I sent out, but don't worry – you don't fit the description at all," the sheriff said. "I'll wire the places I sent them to this afternoon. You go on back to work, son. If your boss needs to talk to me, send him on in."

"I'm sorry for the confusion," Jarrod said.

"Just straighten it out," Samuel said, claimed his gun from the sheriff, and left the office.

Jarrod heaved a sigh, and he and the sheriff looked at each other. The sheriff said, "Now what?"

"Put posters out on the curly headed guy who took off on me," Jarrod suggested. "If the newspaper has an artist they use, I can describe him and we'll have a picture. We won't have a name to go on the poster, but the picture might work."

"That might take care of the other Samuel Drummer, but who the heck is lying in that grave in Stockton?"

"Oh, great day in the morning, Al – there are a lot of answers I don't have," Jarrod moaned and sat down on a chair in the office. "I represented somebody who said his name was Michael Drummer but it wasn't and I got him cleared of a murder charge he might very well have been guilty of. He then went out and robbed and murdered two other people before a posse killed him. He somehow managed to get the stolen jewelry to a drop site he had all pre-arranged with a man who we thought to be his brother Samuel Drummer but who isn't. I can finger this guy for selling the jewelry, and we know he was into some kind of conspiracy with whoever this Michael Drummer really was, but we don't know who these men really were – and damn it, I'm so confused, I'm not sure I'm really Jarrod Barkley anymore." Jarrod chewed on his lip for a moment, then said, "Well, let's try something. Let's go get a warrant and do a thorough search of the house this guy I thought was Samuel Drummer was living in. Maybe you and I can find something there."

The sheriff nodded. "That sounds like a start."

XXXXXXX

All the while they arranged for the search warrant, Jarrod kept going over things in his mind, but the more he thought, the more his head would spin, and the more he felt even more guilty about the Heilmans. This Michael Drummer who had been his client had pulled the wool over his eyes in so many ways that he was now feeling stupid and incompetent as well as guilty. He'd been so anxious to get this Michael Drummer off, because the evidence against him was so weak, that he had completely missed the fact that the man wasn't even who he said he was AND that he was part of a theft conspiracy as well. And who knew whether anyone else was involved with the so-called Drummer brothers in this crime ring?

And the Heilmans were still dead.

The sheriff noticed he was scowling seriously, the whole time they were at the court and the whole time they rode out to the house where Jarrod had found the phony Samuel Drummer. Once they dismounted in front of the house, the sheriff stopped Jarrod with a hand on his arm before he went in. "Now, listen, son. You need to get your mind on our work here if we're gonna accomplish anything. I know you feel like you made some big mistakes, but you can't bring that couple in Stockton back. You can only try to help me figure this mess out and get them some real justice."

Jarrod knew that without being told. He nodded and got himself back to center. "I'm with you, Al," he said.

They went into the house together – and Jarrod immediately noticed something. He pulled his handgun out.

"What?" the sheriff asked quietly.

"He's been here," Jarrod said. "He might still be here."

The sheriff pulled his gun out as well. "How do you know?" he asked.

Jarrod nodded toward the kitchen table. "That coffee cup wasn't here when I was here before."

They split up and tried to get some cover behind furnishings and walls as they slowly went through the house, expecting at any moment that this Drummer who wasn't a Drummer was going to appear suddenly and open fire. But when he appeared, he didn't open fire. He suddenly came up from behind a wall that separated the living room from the kitchen, and he dashed out the back door.

Jarrod was not about to lose him again. Running for the back door, he fired over the man's head as he ran across the back toward the barn. The man didn't stop. Jarrod took a chance and aimed at the man's legs. And the man went down with a yelp.

The sheriff caught up with Jarrod as he reached the man. Jarrod quickly grabbed at him, looking for weapons, but he didn't seem to have any. He just yelled in pain, blood coming out of his lower left leg.

Jarrod grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him up a bit. "Who are you?!" When the man didn't answer, Jarrod aimed his gun at him. "Who are you?!" he repeated.

"Let him go, Jarrod! Put the gun up!" the sheriff yelled. Jarrod pulled the gun up and the sheriff pulled at Jarrod. "Come on, let him go!"

Jarrod obeyed and backed off a step, holstering his gun. The man squirmed on the ground, crying and moaning and making every sound an injured man ever made. The sheriff took manacles off the back of his belt and quickly put them onto the man's wrists.

"Damn you, keep still," the sheriff said, ripped the bandana off the man's neck and tied it around the wound in his leg. "Where's your horse?"

"In the barn," the man said.

"I'll get it," Jarrod said and headed for the barn.

Once alone and inside, he found himself astonished to be shaking like a leaf. He had to stop and lean against a post for a moment. This whole thing, everything that had happened since he first met the fake Michael Drummer, all of the death and robbery and confusion and everything else caught up with him at once. He took some deep breaths and steadied himself. _Get yourself together, Barkley_, he thought. _You've still got work to do_.

XXXX

In a couple hours, Jarrod and the sheriff watched the Merced doctor take care of the bullet wound Jarrod had given Samuel Drummer's imposter, tending him in the cell the sheriff had put him in. The sheriff really hadn't tried to question him yet, hadn't even asked him his real name. The man moaned and cried all the way back to Merced.

"The bullet went through, didn't hit any bone or major blood vessels," the doctor said as he finished doctoring the man's leg. "Is it all right if I give him something for pain?"

"Only if he gives me his real name," the sheriff said.

The imposter glared at him.

The sheriff said, "I know you're not really Samuel Drummer or Samuel Perkins, boy, because the real Samuel Drummer came to me when he found out about his poster. You don't get anything for pain until you give me your name, son, so you might as well cough it up, and it better be the real one."

Jarrod watched from the doorway to the cell block. The man still hesitated. The doctor said, "All right," packed up and started out of the cell.

"Joe Copper," the man said.

"Who was the man passing himself off as your brother Michael Drummer?" Jarrod asked.

The doctor waited, and when the man didn't answer, he took another step out of the cell.

"Avril Boyce," the man said. "His name was Avril Boyce. Please, let me have something for this. It hurts like hell."

"Why?" Jarrod asked.

"Why what?" the man asked.

"Why the phony names? Why take the names of two brothers who really exist?"

"Avril's idea," Copper said. "He was wanted in Nevada and Arizona. He came up here and we met in Modesto and hatched up this scheme when we ran into the Drummer brothers. I just used Perkins when Avril got killed because I didn't want to be connected to him and that auctioneer didn't know me. Now dammit, give me something for this!"

"Why jewelry? Why not steal cash?"

"Avril might have took some cash too, if he saw it. I never took any. Never saw any. Jewelry was easier to find - always right there in a box and easy to pawn and the law comes after you a lot harder if you steal cash."

"Where all did you pawn the things you stole?" the sheriff asked.

"All over!" Copper yelled. "Please, come on, give me something!"

"Go ahead," the sheriff said to the doctor, and the doctor went back into the cell.

Jarrod shook his head and went out into the office. In only a minute or so, the doctor came out, and Jarrod saw the sheriff locking Copper into the cell.

"He'll sleep for a while," the doctor said. "It's not a serious wound, but it is painful."

The sheriff came out. "We can question him more later. Thanks, Doc."

The doctor nodded and went out.

Jarrod stared through the cellblock door, watching Copper lie down on the cot. "Well, at least we have some real names – at least I assume they're real."

"They're probably real," the sheriff said. "Deny a wounded man some pain killer, and he tends to tell the truth."

Jarrod heaved a sigh. "I need to go wire my family and get a room for the night. I want to be around when you question him again, if it's all right."

The sheriff nodded. "We'll do it in the morning – after the painkiller wears off good and proper."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

As the night came in, after he'd wired his family, gotten a room and some food and was settling into bed, Jarrod began to relax – and think again.

At first, he began to run down some questions he thought might still need answering, but it wasn't long before the guilt crept in on him again, and he ended sitting up on the edge of the bed. The one thing that was remaining constant throughout this crazy mess was that the Heilmans were still dead. They were still innocent, and still dead. And they were still dead because the fake Michael Drummer had been acquitted of a murder he probably had committed.

And he was acquitted because Jarrod didn't do his job well enough. He grabbed only at the evidence the prosecution handed him. He did not do enough investigation of his own. He had not uncovered the witness who heard Drummer threaten to kill the cowhand March. He had not even uncovered the fact that his client was not Michael Drummer but Avril Boyce.

_I didn't do my job,_ Jarrod thought. _The Heilmans are dead because I didn't do my job._

He didn't sleep well, and it showed when he came to the sheriff's office in the morning. "Head still spinning, huh?" the sheriff said.

Jarrod nodded. "You could say that. Is Copper awake?"

"He's coming awake slowly. The doc must have really hammered him. Do you think he had anything to do with his buddy killing those people in Stockton?"

"Other than the jewelry, I doubt it," Jarrod said. "I'll check around once I get up there, but my guess is he intentionally avoided Stockton so he'd never be connected with thefts up there, and Boyce avoided Merced so he wouldn't be connected with Copper's thefts down here. He sure doesn't seem to have been there when the Heilmans were killed. I think Boyce was just robbing the Heilmans and they caught him at it. So he killed them and left, and dropped that jewelry at the place they dropped what they stole. Neat little way of one of them robbing someplace and getting the goods out of town for the other one to pick up and sell someplace else so they didn't attract much attention where the goods were stolen. They'd have kept getting away with it if Boyce hadn't been seen and if he hadn't killed the Heilmans."

"Well, one thing's for sure," the sheriff said. "I got some new ideas about a few thefts that have occured around here over the past months. Mr. Copper and I are gonna be talking a lot more."

"If you can get anything out of him about fencing things Boyce gave him from Stockton, I'd appreciate you letting Sheriff Madden up there know," Jarrod said. "He's got a few thefts of his own still open that Copper might be able to close."

Copper gave an audible moan, rolled over on the cot and fell completely out of it with a heavy thump onto the floor, followed by louder moaning. Even Jarrod had to smile. The sheriff said, "Give us an hour or so and we'll at least straighten this out," the sheriff said. "I know that's not gonna do much to ease your conscience about the Heilmans, but we'll get justice for them. That's probably going to have to be enough."

Jarrod nodded. He knew the sheriff was right. There was no way he could bring the Heilmans back, no way he could go back several weeks and do a better job of investigating the fake Michael Drummer so that he was never set free to begin with. He thought about Nick and Jack Follet. Penance, Heath had told Nick. He should do penance by doing better in the future. Jarrod knew that was all he could do now. That, and see that Copper was put away for his part in this terrible mess.

XXXXXXXX

It was a long day, and it was the next day before Jarrod could go home and get back to completing his work for the Heilmans. Copper confessed to everything he could confess to. There was no evidence he was involved in any of Boyce's murders, and he did not confess to any. In the end, Jarrod and the sheriff got all they expected to get out of him, so there would be no trial. Jarrod did not need to return the stolen jewelry for evidence. That meant he could begin to sell the Heilmans' property, including the jewelry, as soon as the notice periods had run.

When he reached Stockton, it was getting late. He fetched his horse from the livery and went straight home, but it was after dark when he got there. He gave his horse to Ciego, who welcomed him home and told him it looked like he needed to go straight to bed. Jarrod agreed with him, but he had to eat first.

When he got into the house, he found the family was already eating dinner. He left his bag and briefcase on the floor near the stairs and went into the dining room to find them already finishing dessert.

"Jarrod! We didn't expect you!" Victoria said.

"Would you like some dinner, Mr. Jarrod?" Silas asked.

"Yes, Silas, thank you," Jarrod said and sat down wearily in his usual chair.

"Everything straightened out?" Heath asked.

"Well, at least all the players have their right names now," Jarrod said. "The real Samuel Drummer is in Merced and the real Michael Drummer is alive and well in Lodi. Michael Drummer here was not Michael Drummer – he was Avril Boyce. His so-called brother Samuel Drummer is not Samuel Drummer – he is Joe Copper and he is in jail."

"What?" Nick said, confused.

Jarrod said, "They stole the Drummers' names and had a nice little theft ring going, until Avril Boyce started killing people."

"Did the man in Merced have anything to do with the murders in Stockton?" Victoria asked.

Jarrod shook his head. "They were Boyce's doing."

"I'm surprised your head is still screwed on straight," Nick said.

"It's not," Jarrod said, and that was all he said for the time being, because Silas set a plate of food in front of him and he was soon eating.

Later, Nick and Heath wandered into the library to shoot a game of pool. Jarrod had disappeared after eating and they thought he was upstairs getting an early trip to bed, but they found him behind the desk in the library, a big book open in front of him, stretching his neck to get the stress out.

"Up for a game of pool, Jarrod?" Nick asked as he and Heath fetched cues down from the wall.

"No," Jarrod said.

"It's time to stop working for the night," Heath said. "Your case is as 'in bed' as it's gonna get."

Jarrod leaned back in the chair. "I'm not working. Just distracting myself."

Nick and Heath looked at each other. "If you were reading Mark Twain, I'd say you were distracting yourself," Heath said and sat down on the corner of the desk as he chalked his cue up. "That isn't Mark Twain."

Nick took a glance at the heading of the page Jarrod was reading – and he immediately did not like it. "Breach of fiduciary duty? Come on, Jarrod. Quit beating yourself up over this. You're not responsible for what Michael Drummer or whoever the heck he was did. Put that thing away."

Jarrod closed the book but did not sit up straight. He still kept looking at the book.

"I know how bad you feel, Jarrod," Nick said, more sympathetically now. "God knows, I know. But thinking you breached your duty to anybody? Come on."

"That's not it, Nick," Jarrod said. "I know I did what the law would call a competent job when I defended Michael Drummer – sorry, Avril Boyce. But it wasn't the level of competence I've always required of myself. The state got lazy on their case, and I got lazy on mine."

"Is it really your job to dig up all the evidence on your client, pro and con?" Heath asked.

"No," Jarrod said. "It's my job to defend against the charge made."

"And that's what you did."

Jarrod nodded. "But what happened with the Heilmans just reminds me that the basic level of competence isn't good enough, even if the law says it is. I should do better."

"Then do better in the future," Nick said. "Like Heath said to me, that's your penance. That's how you live with this."

Jarrod got up and put the book back on the shelf. "I know, and it'll probably sink into me better once I have the Heilmans' affairs straightened away. But I'm gonna feel bad for a while. And forgive myself for this?" Jarrod shook his head. "That might never come."

"Do you think the Heilmans would be happy about you feeling bad forever about this?" Heath asked.

Jarrod understood what Heath was saying. He remembered envisioning the Heilmans sitting up in their coffins at the funeral and accusing him, but he also remembered the real Heilmans. They were forgiving people. "Maybe not," Jarrod said, "but Heath, all I had to do was check Boyce out at the very beginning of the case I defended him on and verify he really was who he said he was. That was all I had to do, and we could have avoided all of this. And the Heilmans would still be alive. I've got to do a lot better than this the next time."

Jarrod left the room without another word, leaving Nick and Heath to look at each other.

The End


End file.
